Michael Jackson waves as he arrives at the Santa Barbara County courthouse in Santa Maria, California on June 3rd, 2005.

Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty

A molestation lawsuit filed against the Michael Jackson estate by choreographer Wade Robson was dismissed Tuesday by a Los Angeles judge who ruled that Robson waited too long to seek legal action. Robson, who previously testified under oath that Jackson never molested him during the singer’s criminal trial in 2005, later sued the Jackson estate in May 2013, claiming Jackson molested him during a seven-year stretch that began in 1990 when Robson was seven, the New York Post reports. The Jackson estate had denied Robson’s allegations.

Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff wrote in his decision that Robson could file a lawsuit “only for a reasonable time period after any violence, intimidation or threatening conduct by the decedent ceases.” The alleged molestation occurred between 1990 and 1997; Robson waited 16 years before taking legal action. In those 16 years, Robson was one of Jackson’s staunchest supporters when the singer faced criminal molestation charges, even when other trial witnesses testified that they saw Jackson molest Robson.

“I’m very mad about it,” Robson previously said of the allegations that Jackson molested him. “It’s not true and they put my name through the dirt. I’m really not happy about it.” However, Robson claimed that a 2012 therapy session made him realize what had happened. “I began to recognize for myself that Jackson had molested me,” Robson said in a sworn statement that preceded his lawsuit (via People). “I first spoke about the sexual activity I had with Jackson. This revelation initiated an enormous emotional, psychological and physiological upheaval in my life that continues until this day.”

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In a statement, Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman praised the judge’s decision to dismiss and said that the estate believed Robson’s initial testimony under oath “when his sole motivation was ‘to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'”

Robson’s attorney Maryann Marzano said they plan to appeal the decision and that they would continue to pursue the molestation claims against the Jackson estate. “We are confident that when all the facts are presented in civil court, there will be no doubt left about just what kind of sexual predator Jackson was,” Marzano said in a statement.